Bibliography of the Icelandic Sagas and Minor Tales (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Bibliography of the Icelandic Sagas and Minor TalesWillard Fiske, the first Librarian of Cornell University, was not only a skilful bibliographer and scholarly librarian but also an indefatigable book-collector. When he resigned his librari anship in 1883, after fifteen years of service, and took up his residence in Italy, he was fortunate in being able to devote his leisure to bibliographical studies and to indulge his fondness for collecting books. How he was led, a few years later, to bring together and present to the University Library a collection of rhaeto-romanic literature, numbering some fourteen hundred volumes, and a remarkably complete Dante collection, compris ing over seven thousand volumes, he has charmingly told in the introductions to the printed catalogues of these collections. His visits to Egypt led him to make a collection of the literature of transcription which he also presented to the University Li braty, while to the National Library of Iceland he presented a collection of some twelve hundred volumes on the game of chess and its history. At his death in 1904, he bequeathed to Cornell University his extensive Petrarch and Icelandic collections and not only made generous provision for their maintenance and ih crease, but bequeathed also to the University all his residuary estate as a fund for general library purposes, adding altogether about half a million dollars to the endowment of the University Library.Of the collections given by him to the University Library the Icelandic collection is much the largest. It is also the oldest and perhaps the richest in rare books and editions. Its forma tion was the work of a lifetime, for its beginning was made by Mr. Fiske when a student in the University of Upsala more than fifty years ago. Here he became imbued with a deep and abiding love for the old-icelandic language and literature, and took advantage of the favorable opportunity offered by his residence in Scandinavia to collect books in this field. Upon his return to America in 1853, he became an assistant in the Astor Library, then just about to open its doors under the superintendence of that able and learned librarian J. G. Cogswell, from whom he received valuable training in bibliographical methods. At the same time he kept up his Icelandic studies and gradually added to his Icelandic collection. A description of the collection was given in 1860 in Wynne's Private Libraries of New York, and it was then reputed to be the richest collection of Icelandic literature and history in the country. A later account of the collection is given by M. W. Plummer in the Bulletin of Bibliography for April, 1897, but the fullest description is that given by E. P. Evans in the Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, 13, 14 Sept. 1896. Since then it has been largely increased and now contains about nine thousand volumes.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.